Elife

The rumble of the wheels broke the silence of the underground. Although, could you call such a crowded place quiet? Perhaps you could, if you thought about the deafening clatter of the trains mechanism.

I ran my hand over the screen of the newly acquired phone. It looked at me as if waiting, as if expecting me to say something. But I was silent. I kept quiet and hoped that no one was staring at my screen.

I really did not like such inquisitive people. Although I have to admit, I used to be like that myself. You know, when you go to work or college, you don think about something like that. Eyes go into other peoples personal space on their own. You don think so, no! Im not making excuses for myself. I rather blame myself for who I used to be. But, on the other hand, I have changed. I don act that way anymore.

But perhaps the reason was boredom. It is boredom that often drives people to do things. It is boredom that draws us to want to learn something. What is there to learn in the underground car anyway? You can find out how much a sushi delivery is on sale, what great, but often useless, courses are held for young people, how much it costs to live in an apartment complex, and even sometimes find out that someone has lost a cat. How frustrating being human can be! On top of all that, people also look in others phones. Some may even find it amusing.

But even so. I was glad that I was finally able to get what I wanted. Almost all my life I had lived with an old model of phone, and yes – exactly a phone. It was so hard to keep in touch with my work colleagues, constantly reminding them that I don have Telegram, WhatsApp or Viber. But theres a great value-added item. Im not sure I should complain about something like that. Some might even be happy about such a find. My phone was the legendary Nokia-3310, which has become something of a symbol of the company. For a while I wanted to just sell it to collectors (not bank collectors!) and get myself a nice smartphone that way, but I decided not to do so. Something… Something stopped me.

Anyway, I had saved enough money. I had enough money to buy a smartphone. I decided to take a risk. The thing is, I work for a phone company (Id rather not name it) as an accountant, and I often heard from the manager about a newcomer to the market. There wasn much information about him in the paperwork, and there weren many customers. But… There were, weren there? So I decided to become one of them.

I want to rest today. Just a break from everything. From work, from people, from the fast pace of our days. In my hands I was holding a smartphone from ELIFE.

It was a fairly rugged phone with its own operating system. Watching its splash screen I thought to myself: ”Why doesn a company like this have a mass customer? So much time had been spent… And for what? ”

It was about the same way I was starting my own business. Despite my current job, I have a good background in finance. Maybe its my fault for not settling down in life as I should. Or maybe its the fault of society. I don know.

I switched on the camera. I decided to see how it shot. I don care that much about the megapixels on the packaging. I am, after all, an ordinary user who is not that interested in photography as art. However, I don run an Instagram either. Consequently, I don seem to need it. At least not on a permanent basis. Maybe I will take photos of documents with it, or maybe something else for work, but no more.

Meanwhile, a dark-haired guy with sharp features was staring at me from the mobile screen. I got goosebumps. I guess I don need to explain, but Nokia couldn boast of a camera. Like a lot of phones at the time, I guess. I started looking at myself. How sad I looked… My hair was disheveled and under my blue eyes, not so elegantly ”decorated ” with